Mark Cooley is an interdisciplinary artist interested in exploring the intersections of art, activism and institutional critique in a variety of contexts. Subjects of particular interest are U.S. foreign policy, corporate culture, and the political economy of new technologies. Recently, Mark has focused his attention on food production and consumption and the ways in which artists may mediate in these processes.

The dictionary highlights the terminology of fear, security and war that has permeated American English post 9-11. It includes 68 new terms i.e. Preparedness and Freedom Fries as well as terms that have recently been redefined i.e. Torture.

The dictionary also has an interactive dimension. 58 terms are left undefined for the reader to pencil in their own definition. Furthermore, readers are invited to submit their additions to the institute for a possible inclusion in the 2nd edition.

a huge balloon, tied to a carâ��s vent-pipe, depicting the amount of exhaust emissions a car releases a day.

the "bursting earth" project is similar, but more dynamic. activists attach world globe balloons on exhaust pipes of cars in Berlin. the exhaust gas inflates the ballons. after the message becomes readable, there is a big "bang".

Aesthetics and Politics

REALIZING THE IMPOSSIBLE: ART AGAINST AUTHORITY by Josh MacPhee, Erik Reuland, editors :: There has always been a close relationship between aesthetics and politics in anti-authoritarian social movements. And those movements have in turn influenced many of the last century's most important art movements, including cubism, Dada, post-impressionism, abstract expressionism, surrealism, Fluxus, Situationism, and punk. Today, the movement against corporate globalization, with its creative acts of resistance, has brought anti-authoritarian politics into the forefront. This sprawling, inclusive collection explores this vibrant history, with topics ranging from turn-of-the-century French cartoonists to modern Indonesian printmaking, from people rolling giant balls of trash down Chicago streets to massive squatted urban villages and renegade playgrounds in Denmark, from stencil artists of Argentina to radical video collectives of the US and Mexico. Lots of illustrations, all b&w.;

WITCHin flux is an experimental remix of Yoko Ono's 2007 release Yes, I'm a Witch and an attempt to apply classic Fluxus concerns to the context of an entirely hip yet somewhat conservatively staged reinterpretive retrospective of Yoko Ono's musical works. Moving away from typical remix theory that re-authorizes the internal content of a piece the goal here is to deconstruct the structural constraints of the album / cd form itself and to recast some of the constants of that essentailly analog form to the concepts of variability and random access apparent in Fluxus works and common to digital culture.

WITCHin flux is an experimental remix of Yoko Ono's 2007 release Yes, I'm a Witch and an attempt to apply classic Fluxus concerns to the context of an entirely hip yet somewhat conservatively staged reinterpretive retrospective of Yoko Ono's musical works. Moving away from typical remix theory that re-authorizes the internal content of a piece the goal here is to deconstruct the structural constraints of the album / cd form itself and to recast some of the constants of that essentailly analog form to the concepts of variability and random access apparent in Fluxus works and common to digital culture.

Thank you for your comment Pall. It's interesting that the code / content debate duplicates the old debate about form and content in art. I try not to separate these things but often end up falling into the same modernist trap. I think your last comment concerning the social implications of tools themselves are very important and seems to be the direction socially engaged artists should take (and many already do). As you've said, modes of production matter a whole lot in terms of political economy. Separating the politics of representation from the politics of process or production is sort of like having "buy local" printed on a t-shirt made in China (something I saw not long ago). Thanks again for the comment. It's nice when things like this generate responses.